Indigenes Raise Alarm Over Gas Leakage in Bayelsa

Indigenes of Kalaba community, Okordia Clan in Yenagoa Local Government of Bayelsa State, have raised the alarm over a major gas leakage in Taylor creeks, which has contaminated their only source of drinkable water. They have called on the Nigerian Oil and Gas Company (NAOC), operators of the Agip Joint Ventures, who own the pipeline to come to their rescue before it gets out of hand.

A close watch by the community also shows the oil/gas pipelines belong to the Nigeria Agip Oil Company which crossed the Taylor Creek while a further check revealed what was suspected to be a gas leak from one of the company’s pipelines.

The Paramount ruler of the community, Chief Roman Orukali and the youth president, Samuel Oburo, reacted to the sudden leakage, saying, they were informed of the leakage which prompted them to come and investigate.

“You can see that people are still making use of the Creek, rowing from one end of the community to the other, washing, bathing and every other thing we use the water here for, even though it portends some health risks. This is our only source of water, nearest to the community and, it is a major resource our people rely on. It is very unfortunate that Agip has operated here for over 28 years and this community is yet to benefit anything from the company; we get only the negative impacts of their operations. Even the water project which Agip promised us, for which the community and Agip had signed a Memorandum of Understanding [MOU], it is over a year since signing the MOU and Agip is yet to execute the water project for our community.”

The traditional ruler said: “What we are seeing here is the bubbling of gas; leaking from the pipe of NOAC.

“As a trained field monitor, I also came around to see what was happening in the environment. I discovered that it was true, gas was actually bubbling. Incidentally, this Creek is our only source of drinking water and where we carry out almost all domestic activities, right now, the water is polluted.”